This is nice, Mikey, and in your case, I certainly hope it works this way for you.

I hope you don't mind if I give you my feelings on this. (You can always "hide" this comment.) Very simply:

It should work that way but I don't think it really does in theory. We humans can tend to start taking things for granted, for one thing.

Plus, I believe we all feel great love---love for and from our mothers when we are infants/children and love of our family pets, for instance, without having experienced sadness or loss.

When a dog (which is a less complicated example than a person) dies, does it mean we love the next dog more? No. Each dog and each person is loved uniquely. I am still grieving over the loss of my soulmate dog who died nine years ago. The two dogs I have now don't come close to replacing her. I don't believe it's possible that I'll ever love another dog as much.

However, I do think that we GROW through adversity so the "love lost" and "lonliness", etc., do have a good purpose.

Ooops! I said Mikey because I have a friend here whose screen name is like yours. Sorry, Matthew! (And he is grieving the loss of a girlfriend, by the way, and has been depressed about her for TWO years and counting.)

very nice; short and sweet and full of pretty sentiment, and I love how it's more of a traditional poem in regard to rhyme. Not many people can write in traditional these days and come off as sounding natural, but this sounds so effortless and lovely.


great job

--
a. crow cowboy candycane ghost(hh)

Thank you. It means a lot coming form a poet like you. I am afraid that I did not set out to write in traditional—the words just tumble out. Is it not interesting that the more befuddle and confused my mind gets from the narcotics, the better the poetry that is produced? I think maybe the conscious mind works against the freedom of the sub-conscience mind, which is more driven by the heart and spirit.

I have loved reading poetry starting at about age 13, when I discovered Emily Dickinson and Edgar Allen Poe (I was of dark depressive disposition then), then later Robert Frost. They got me going.

One of my favorite poems of all time is a mystery, because I don't know who wrote it. It sounds too good for me to have written it (many years of my early life are blacked-out). The poem is hand written or copied, and in the margin, I wrote Benita Garcia (along with other scribbled notes), but I cannot find any reference to this poet on the internet. If you have heard of a poet by that name, please let me know.
Here is the Poem. It speaks so much about me and my life:

In moments of deep doubt or intense pain,
When I am overpowered by my life,
I search around me everywhere I can
For kindred souls who know what I know not,
For those who have the strength to mitigate
What makes me tremble, weep, and often brood.
They tell me that I cannot live my way
Where all my feelings rule my conscious mind.
I must control myself before the act,
Or else accept what I have long endured,
The brutal days of feeling lost and blind.
There have been times, not many but a few,
When someone has possessed the soothing balm,
Providing surcease for my angst or pain.
But age has taught me now one simple rule.
Inside myself I must the screams contain,
Whatever devils must be wrestled there,
The lessons learned will not be lost again.
We walk alone upon our final trip.
No hand can help us on that day of death.
It's best we learn, while time is still our friend,
To trust ourselves, and save our precious breath.

--
I worship at the altar of creativity.

Thanks. When it works, it is without effort.

--
I worship at the altar of creativity.

Of course I don't mind.

It is not a matter of loving the next dog more, it is a matter of "appreciating" the love you receive form the new dog more.

Young children and babies receive love, but take it for granted, until it is lost or absent. So again, I do not speak of loving more or less, but rather how we can appreciate love (and other things) more.

Many people get stuck in the grief process. I still have dreams about a cat I was very close with. My memories are of fondness, not of loss. It is an active choice to make in the grieving process, to accept that your loved one is still with us in our memories and feelings. When we share ourselves with someone, or a loved pet, they literally become part of who we are. Our lives are different for having them in it. They live on in us. And as we touch the lives of others, it is passed on, and on again. Our immortality is in how we touch the lives of others.

So I try not to dwell on the loss of a love, because the love is still there, the thoughts and memories are still there. Even a presence, of sorts, is still there, if you choose to see it. But they need to be allowed to be positive and comforting, rather than a symbol of grief, loss, and loneliness.

For me, love is not a matter of being greater, but it is a matter of being deeper, which means that the level of connection and sharing is greater or deeper.

So, my poem is about how the appreciation of love changes. The same is true of good and bad, etc. The terms are relative to each other, by definition. You appreciate the goodness in people more once you have experience the evil in people. The amount of goodness has not changed, but now you recognize appreciate the goodness that was already there, much more.

---------------------------

Here is how I define Love (I am going to post this later sometime):

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE

Love Is The Glue Of Humanity.

Love is all about connecting and sharing with others. I define Love as the "sharing of the self" with another—a two-way street. Most importantly, each of you must be able and willing to share of yourselves with each other.

How much sharing is done, how intimate the sharing is, and how long the sharing has taken place—all determine the Depth of Love.

We can share of ourselves on a number of different levels, such as:
Emotionally
Socially,
Intellectually,
Spiritually,
Physically,
The Sharing of Space and Time (living together, roommates, growing up with siblings),
and Sharing of the Heart.

Remember unconditional love? There is NO BETTER FEELING in life, that to be unconditionally loved. It cannot happen if you lie to each other. We know all the good, the bad, and the ugly about each other, and knowing all of that, we still love each other, unconditionally.

One word, love, is used to to mean so many different things.

We love our parents differently than we love out siblings. We love our best friends differently than we love a spouse.

Two strangers, sitting down over coffee, talking the night away, "sharing their lives and feelings", is an act of love, in my book.

** You and I sharing of ourselves in this media, is an act of love. **

Trust and love have close ties, a marriage of sorts.

Doing something selfless for another, is also an expression of love.

The most important elements of all LOVING RELATIONSHIP are Trust, Honesty, Openness, and Willingness to Communicate. Love is all about SHARING, sharing on many different levels, like the spiritual, emotional, social, physical, and intellectual levels, as well as the sharing of space and time, and Sharing of the Heart.

--
I worship at the altar of creativity.

For your Friend:

It is very difficult to open new doors in life, until you close the old ones. What "was" is now gone in the physical world, but not gone from your heart or memory. The time you spent with your girlfriend is now part of you. She influenced your life and you are now who you are, partly because of her.

There is a clear choice here. You can choose to experience every memory of her, every reminder of her, every dream of her, as a positive warm experience of remembered love and intimacy. Or you can choose to have every memory of her, every reminder of her, every dream of her, trigger agony, pain, loss, and missing her so much you ache all over from it.

You can choose to hold what you have of her close to your heart in a positive way, and move on with your life. She will NEVER be replaced. So never compare another woman to her. Every love we experience is unique to that person. You will never find a woman like your lost love again. A new love can be just as intense, or even more intense, as hard as that is to believe right now.

There is a door wide open, the door of unrealistic hope that she will return to you. It might be possible, but you would spend the rest of your life waiting for something very unlikely to happen. There is a denial in you saying that it is not truly OVER. It is time to accept that it is over. Close that door and take what you have of her with you. Then see the open door of "possibilities," which has just opened.

Whoever said you have only one true love in your life was an IDIOT. The world abounds with possible true loves. I was not even physically attracted to my true love, at first. Love does not have to happen like a thunderclap, with fireworks. It can happen by choice.

I can tell you this, love cannot happen unless you are open to letting it happen. Imagineer yourself in love again. Actively imagine yourself dating and having fun being out with a woman you are crazy about. Try to remember what it feels like to be loved unconditionally by another, and to love another that way. Let that help you through the grief you are still feeling.

Till the soil of your heart and prepare it for the seed of love, for when the opportunity arrives. Convince yourself you are ready to love again, and to be loved. It is the most important thing for you to do. Please believe me in this, most women can sense your willingness and readiness for love, just as they can sense you unwillingness and not being ready to be loved and to love.

Then relax, put yourself in social circles, go dancing, go about life, and love WILL come your way.

A few thoughts on Masculinity:
The foundation of male masculinity is in having a HEALTHY balance of self-confidence, self-acceptance, self-reliance, self-worth, self-assuredness, and a dash of pride; and in carrying yourself with all of those things—shoulders back, standing tall (timid is not considered masculine). These things give you personal power and masculinity.

Please note that one does not want to be excessive in these things as that is seen as hubris and your presence is too overpowering.

If you combine a healthy balance of those masculine qualities, with COMPASSION and Human Decency, you will then become the ideal wet dream of many a man and woman.

The traditional definition of masculinity was having the qualities or appearance of strength and aggressiveness, but this is no longer the case in much of the modern Western world.

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I worship at the altar of creativity.

Thanks, Matthew. I will give him the link. It is all RIGHT ON. But, particularly the last four paragraphs are so important. There can be no TRUE success without those qualities. Anyway, everything you said is really beautiful.